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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25450849">exhausted, rotten flowers</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflower_8/pseuds/sunflower_8'>sunflower_8</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Codependency, Complicated Relationships, Eating Disorders, Hurt No Comfort, In a sense, M/M, Past Suicide Attempt, References to Depression, Terminal Illnesses, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unresolved Emotional Tension, not cathartic, vent - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:01:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,429</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25450849</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflower_8/pseuds/sunflower_8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>and that’s what makes hinata feel the most guilty. what he’s done to himself, he can accept. he can even allow himself the bitter indulgence of his relationship with komaeda, twisted and confusing and painful but real, real, real. however, what he regrets, with all the self-hatred simmering in his bleary eyes, is allowing komaeda to neglect himself in this way when he’s already so sick.</p><p>(or, hinata and komaeda are both sick.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hinata Hajime/Komaeda Nagito</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>75</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>exhausted, rotten flowers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>they curl together in the hours after dinner, laying in the vacancies and caverns of a bedroom where the thin curtains are pulled taut and the sheets are a mess on the floor. it’s not a sign of intimacy, not in that sense, because that’s a threshold to cross and a tragedy to bear on blade-sharp shoulders. instead, it’s a symbol of restlessness,</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>desperation,</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>and they curl together, two hungry people, in the hours after dinner.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>komaeda is the one to break first. he always is-- when the silence gets to a fever pitch, he laughs loudly and violently and all-at-once, and hinata watches at his side as he comes down, comes down, comes down. it leaves his throat raw and his stomach hurting (but both of them have aches) and he quietens as quickly as the uptake to hysteria. it’s a pattern, almost a way to break the tension with more turmoil, and he rasps to the other, “it’s a special kind of despair, isn’t it?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“we’re not in despair,” hinata’s quick to cut in, because he doesn’t like the thought of it, the bitter taste on his tongue at the mere </span>
  <em>
    <span>thought </span>
  </em>
  <span>of being in despair again, of being someone else (someone who is still a piece of him, who frowns upon what he does to himself, who has only ever been a passive observer, who partakes in hinata’s obsession). komaeda talks about despair a </span>
  <em>
    <span>lot</span>
  </em>
  <span>, as if it’s some kind of conversation piece, something to </span>
  <em>
    <span>bond over</span>
  </em>
  <span>,</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>but nobody likes thinking about what they’ve done. everyone on the island would rather die than fall into despair again, even if they had to, even if the future foundation’s agenda was at their throat, and hinata </span>
  <em>
    <span>hates </span>
  </em>
  <span>how komaeda compares despair to what they are doing, now. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>they aren’t despairing. they are </span>
  <em>
    <span>obsessing</span>
  </em>
  <span>. they are </span>
  <em>
    <span>coping</span>
  </em>
  <span>-- and it’s an ugly, tainted way of coping, but it’s still </span>
  <em>
    <span>coping</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and it’s not </span>
  <em>
    <span>despair, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“oh, i’m sorry, hinata-kun!” komaeda says easily, even though his voice is still broken, has been for a while. in his head, hinata chides him for not drinking enough water, for being dehydrated, but he knows it would be hypocritical. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(he knows, too, that if he pressed the matter, komaeda would give him a shitty fake grin and tell him </span>
  <em>
    <span>oh but hinata-kun, i tried to drown myself a month ago, i took in a lot of water, then, haha!</span>
  </em>
  <span> there’s an endless list of what hinata has no energy to handle, and that’s on the top. komaeda’s always been at the top of the list,</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>and yet-- and </span>
  <em>
    <span>yet</span>
  </em>
  <span>-- his motivation to do it all.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>hinata shakes his head slightly, wincing at how his headache acts up in retaliation to the movement. after a while, it’s become easier to identify, easier to work with, but no less painful. no variety in cause, but hinata lacks the transparency to tell tsumiki a word of it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>in a low voice, fitting of the atmosphere in the room, hinata replies, “it’s fine, komaeda. aren’t you tired?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it’s a non-sequitur first and redundant second. he </span>
  <em>
    <span>knows</span>
  </em>
  <span> that komaeda is tired, has to be, because the forlorn man runs on antidepressants and sugarless coffee, bones hollowed out and cheekbones high enough to match the taper of his artificial smile. the shadows underneath his eyes, the crease that grows with time, the half-lidded gaze he gives on the harder days, glassy eyes-- all betray that the energy he feigns is null, that he is </span>
  <em>
    <span>exhausted</span>
  </em>
  <span>. he is </span>
  <em>
    <span>exhausted </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>terminally sick </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>hungry-</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>and that’s what makes hinata feel the most guilty. what he’s done to himself, he can accept. he can even allow himself the bitter indulgence of his relationship with komaeda, twisted and confusing and painful but </span>
  <em>
    <span>real, real, real</span>
  </em>
  <span>. however, what he regrets, with all the self-hatred simmering in his bleary eyes, is allowing komaeda to neglect himself in this way when he’s already </span>
  <em>
    <span>so sick</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>komaeda’s reply sounds like a chirp more than anything, a bright and cheerful, “not yet!” it dies down when he places an almost skeletal hand on hinata’s cheek, tilting his head and shifting closer so his delicate hair falls into his mercury eyes, brushes against hinata’s neck. komaeda’s hair is the only soft part of him left. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(hinata shuts his eyes at the thought.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“are you tired, hinata-kun?” komaeda asks with a voice that’s slightly concerned, knowing of the answer. he strokes hinata’s jaw with tentative fingers, and hinata feels his eyes burn underneath the shroud of thick eyelashes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>after hesitating, he succumbs to honesty, mutters, “yeah,” with more than a bit of resentment and wraps his arms around komaeda’s waist. in one abrupt motion, he pulls him down, and without even startling, komaeda nestles against his chest. there’s still so much there, so much he hasn’t lost, and selfishly, </span>
  <em>
    <span>selfishly</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he wishes he could have the drastic physical shift that komaeda had.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(that longing isn’t one-sided. he knows, because komaeda has told, that the other wishes he could have hinata’s discipline, his ability to wave off concerns, his ability to </span>
  <em>
    <span>not be a burden.</span>
  </em>
  <span> he doesn’t want to tell komaeda that he thinks he’s a burden, still. he doesn’t want to hurt him, spiteful and quick to self-deprecate, and pretend like komaeda hasn’t been told, in subtle cues well-deserved, that he is more of a burden than hinata ever could be.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it isn’t the others fault for making komaeda feel like an outcast, because komaeda </span>
  <em>
    <span>puts himself in that position. </span>
  </em>
  <span>and hinata knows why he does that, knows him like the lines in his palms and the veins in his wrists, but that doesn’t change the circumstances. it’s painful, it’s bitter, and nothing can be done.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>komaeda will die before he makes himself a piece of jabberwock island, and hinata thinks this with the despondency of a man who has only ever offered exhausted love, and yet endless apathy, both set out of his control. he isn’t sure which is more painful, but he knows what is true and knows that only one person, in this room, can change their fate. he knows that he won’t. that he can’t trust himself to make a life-or-death decision anymore.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“i’m not all that tired, yet,” komaeda echoes, “but i can stay with hinata-kun until he sleeps! that is, if hinata-kun would </span>
  <em>
    <span>want </span>
  </em>
  <span>my company…” and it’s almost taunting, because hinata already has his arms wrapped tightly around him, and they’ve done this dance a thousand times before, and maybe komaeda is only asking because he knows that hinata doesn’t have energy, that hinata skipped breakfast and dinner, that he </span>
  <em>
    <span>can’t fight this</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>and hinata </span>
  <em>
    <span>can’t</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but he tugs komaeda into a kiss, instead, and he tastes like bitter pills and dehydration, but hinata can still find the remnants of vanilla chapstick, and he chases after it with every piece of him as if the sweet taste can keep komaeda </span>
  <em>
    <span>here</span>
  </em>
  <span>, can keep him </span>
  <em>
    <span>alive</span>
  </em>
  <span>-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>-hinata just wants to keep him </span>
  <em>
    <span>alive.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>in a heartbeat, komaeda laughs softly and says, “you’re kissing me like i’m dying, hinata-kun. how </span>
  <em>
    <span>romantic</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“shut up,” hinata holds him tighter, even while his chest heaves. “just shut up.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“ahaha, it makes me wonder… what if we die together? we’re both decaying, hinata-kun. we’re both </span>
  <em>
    <span>rotten. </span>
  </em>
  <span>mm, would we die in each other’s arms? i would like to think so. i would like to see it, see all of it, know what we’ve </span>
  <em>
    <span>done</span>
  </em>
  <span>, haha. wouldn’t it be beautiful?” it seeps from the cracks in his chapped lips, and hinata just watches with tired, tired eyes. “it’d be a shame for your hope to die like this, though. all that talent, hah, drowned away by something like this? a voluntary decision, made by a </span>
  <em>
    <span>reserve</span>
  </em>
  <span>-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“komaeda.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“ahaha, i got carried away, didn’t i?” he flashes hinata a smile like wilting flowers, fitting against his chest and murmuring, “hey, hinata-kun? if i die, promise me you’ll stop? it really would be so hopeless, to carry a piece of me in something like </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>he knows better than to reply, and yet he can’t fight off the urge, so he asks, “and what if you live?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>komaeda’s smile turns sad, an unconventional kind of vulnerability. “then wait for me,” he whispers,</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>and hinata shuts his eyes, at that, and falls into an endless caliber of sleep.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(but he wakes up. they both do-- exchanging half-assed love confessions in the dark, pushing each other further and further until they shrivel into each other’s arms, and resenting, endlessly resenting, in the spaces between.)</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>another lil vent fic.</p><p>quick note to say: i am in no way attempting to romanticize eating disorders. within the fic, komaeda does refer to romance while talking about this topic, but there's nothing beautiful about struggling with these disorders. it's hell, and if i ever romanticized it here (or overall), let me know in the comments so i can run through the fic and edit some things to make it better. i'm not awfully articulate today; i hope you get what i'm trying to say.</p><p>i think that's all i have to say, here. have a nice day lovelies!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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